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Date Posted: 23:16:00 12/14/14 Sun
Author: usmgrad
Subject: Repost - Moments in Time

Title – Anniversary Challenge #5 Moments in Time

Author – usmgrad

Disclaimer - JAG and its characters are the property of CBS Television, Paramount Studios and Bellisarius Productions. All rights reserved. No monetary gain will be realized from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.

These glimpses of Harmon Rabb Jr.’s early life are based on things we learned during the show mixed with how Harm might have been affected by the events that took place in Vietnam. We begin four months after Harmon Rabb, Sr. was shot down in Vietnam, December 24, 1969 and was declared an MIA.



March 1970

“Harmon Rabb, you better be ready for school.” If they didn’t leave soon he was going to be late again.

Harm entered the kitchen rubbing his eyes, still in his pajamas, “But Tommy said the ship is coming in this morning, aren’t we going to see Daddy?”

Trish knew the Ticonderoga was arriving today, that’s why she had a full day planned away from the base. She didn’t want to think about the fact that her husband wasn’t coming home with his shipmates. She hadn’t mentioned the arrival to her son, so his question took her by surprise. Trish had to sit down, catch her breath and gather her thoughts before she could respond. Today was going to be harder than she thought.

“Harm, Daddy isn’t on the ship.”

“Why not?”

“Remember I told you his plane was hit and he’s missing.”

Young Harm was confused, “well yah, but then he got found because we got those letters from him and he sent presents and his trunk came with all his stuff. And he didn’t come home yesterday when all the other pilots came home because his plane is broken. So isn’t he on the ship?”

Trish’s heart sank, while she had been protecting her son from the pain she was suffering, she had also been denying him the truth about what happened to his dad.

“No honey, remember I told you the letters and presents were sent before his plane was hit. It took a long time for them to get here. Sweetheart, he’s still missing in Vietnam.”

Harm thought about all his mother had told him about his dad, his plane being hit, him hiding and the helicopters from the Tico searching for him. “But if the ship is here who’s looking for my Daddy?”

Trish was unprepared for this conversation, or the conversation to be had if her husband was never found. “Honey, there’s lots of Navy and Army and Air Force people still in Vietnam looking for your Daddy. It’s just that it was time for all the people on his ship to come home.”

Harm tried not to cry, but the tears fell anyway. “I want my Daddy to come home.”

Trish took her son in her arms, holding her own tears back, “I know honey, so do I.”


March 1973
Harm is nine


Harm was excited as he walked in the front door, hollering for his mother. “Mom, where are you?”

Trish came from the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel. “Right here son, where’s the fire?”

“The teachers were talking about it at school. Is it true? Is everyone coming home?”

Trish had heard it on the news also, but she knew everyone was not coming home. Trish didn’t want to spoil her son’s happiness, but since that first year she was determined to tell her son the truth about his father.

“Harmon, your father’s not coming home.”

Harm didn’t believe his mother, “But they said everyone is finally coming home. He’s been gone a long time, it’s time for him to get to come home too.”

“Harm, the Navy doesn’t know where your father is; your dad doesn’t know everyone’s leaving.”

Harm sat down on the sofa, Trish had never seen her son go from ecstatically happy to so low, even when his team lost the football championship everyone had worked so hard to achieve. “Doesn’t my dad want to come home? Doesn’t he love us anymore?”

Trish sat next to her son, “Of course he does sweetheart. No matter where he is or what he’s doing he loves us and wishes he was here with us.”

Trish sat there holding onto her young son, realizing he wasn’t little anymore. He was growing up without his father. Tears formed in her eyes, not for her loss, she would cry her tears later, alone in her bedroom. But for her son’s loss.

“How about we go out to eat tonight, just you and me.” Anything to cheer up her son, even if it meant a strain on the food budget for a few weeks.

“No thanks mom, I’m going to my room for a while.”

Trish knew exactly what he would do once in his room. He would take his father’s picture and the model plane he had received for Christmas all those years ago, sit on his bed and listen to letter tapes his dad had sent home. Making copies of the letter tapes for Harm had been one thing Trish had done in hopes that he would always remember the sound of his dad’s voice, incase he ever did come home.

Two years later,
April 1975, the fall of Saigon

Harmon and Trish sit on the sofa watching the news. The US had pulled out of Vietnam two years earlier but now it was finally over, the north had reached Saigon. The news was doing a recap of the history of Vietnam, normally Trish would not have let her son watch but she had discovered that the older he got the more he learned, on his own, about Vietnam, the place that his father went missing. As the reporter brought the story to a close the last scenes were of the people trying to get on the helicopters. Harm watched intently.

When the TV went to commercial Harm turned and with anger in his eyes asked his mother, “Who’s going to look for the MIA’s now?”

Trish didn’t have an answer.



1976 – seven years after Lt. Harmon Rabb, USN was shot down
Harmon Rabb Jr is 13

The day started out just like every other had for the past two months. Harm refused to speak to his mother. He had stopped talking to her when he found out she was having his dad declared dead. It’s not that Trish was purposely trying to hurt her son; she was actually doing it for his own good. There were things that her son needed that couldn’t happen until his father was either found or declared dead. Since the military still had him listed as MIA and couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her anything else her only choice was to have him declared legally dead. She didn’t want to, it was hurting her more than Harm knew but she knew she had to if they were to have any future.

It all became real in the day’s mail delivery. She received the final papers, he was officially gone and she cried all over again.

Harm didn’t see the red eyes when he came home, or the missing smile and cheerful “welcome home son”. He actually didn’t see his mother at all when he entered the house. His eyes were drawn immediately to a package sitting on the front table. He quickly opened it, having waited six weeks for it to arrive. When he finally got it opened he had tears in his eyes.

He walked to the kitchen, faced his mother, showed her the item he had waited for patiently and informed her, “My dad is not dead. He’s missing in action. And one day I’m going to find him.”

He then put on the MIA bracelet he had saved his money to special order, the one with Harmon Rabb Sr.’s name on it.



Summer 1979
Harm is sixteen

When she thought about it she realized it had been building for years. Harm was determined to find his father; she just never thought he would go to these lengths. He had taken his savings and somehow managed to get to Vietnam where he hooked up with an ex-soldier looking for MIAs and POWs. Now after the longest two weeks in her life he was finally being brought home. A government official, Nevell Webb, had told her everything he knew about her son’s last two weeks, which wasn’t much. He also gave her a background on Sergeant Stricker, the person her son had been with. If it hadn’t been for an article and picture discovered by friends in the paper she would still be looking for her son.

He arrived home in one piece, but Trish knew the things her son had seen and probably done would haunt him for the rest of his life. She had so wanted to protect him from all the bad things in life, like any mother. But this, his devotion to his father, was something she realized she could never stop. Harmon Rabb Jr loved his father even though he had been gone from his life for ten years.


Two months later

She had tried ever way she knew to break the news to him. There was no easy way but just say it. Finally she decided it would be today, while they ate breakfast. She was sure he would understand, he might not be happy but he would understand.

“Frank Burnett asked me to marry him.”

Her son made no attempt to respond.

“I said yes.”

There was still no reaction from her son.

“It’s not that I didn’t . . .

Harm looked up, startled; Trish realized what she had said.

“. . .don’t love him, but he’s not been found and we don’t know. . .”

“My father’s not dead.”

“I hope for your sake he’s not, but I have a life to live also and whether you believe it or not your father wanted me to be happy. And Frank makes me happy.”

“Yes ma’am”

“Harmon.”

He looked at his mother, “He’s not my father.”

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Replies:

[> Very good read, powerful story and sadly for so many, true. -- JoyZ, 09:10:32 12/15/14 Mon [1]


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[> This story always makes me cry. So well written and told the sadness Harm carried for years. -- Beth, 12:15:30 12/15/14 Mon [1]


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